DC Velocity - October 2017

4 DC VELOCITY OCTOBER 2017 www.dcvelocity.com inbound

Quick, what’s the fastest, safest, cheapest way to move freight between two cities about 500 miles apart?

According to Elon Musk, founder of electric-car maker Tesla Inc. and the SpaceX rocket and aerospace firm, it’s a six-foot-wide vacuum tube he calls the Hyperloop. Musk popularized the concept in a 2013 white paper that offered a detailed, 58-page description of the hypothetical system. Two years later, SpaceX announced it was building a one-mile demonstration tube at its Hawthorne, Calif., headquarters and would host a competition challenging university teams to design and build the best transport “pod” for use in the tube.

This past August, nearly two dozen teams of college students from around the globe assembled in Hawthorne for the SpaceX “Hyperloop II” race, where they vied to see whose magnetic-levitation pod could fly through the tube the fastest. The race represented the third judging phase of the multi-part Hyperloop Pod Competition (earlier rounds included a design competition and a preliminary on-track competition).

Among the contestants was a team sponsored by the Fishers, N.Y.-based material handling equipment provider Gorbel Inc. The Gorbel-backed team, known as “Paradigm Hyperloop,” is made up of students from Boston’s Northeastern University and Canada’s Memorial University of Newfoundland. Gorbel provided the team with a two-ton gantry crane that allowed them to safely lift their experimental pod as they tinkered with its suspension, brakes, lateral control, and air bearings, the company said.

Paradigm was the only North American team to make the finals, earning second place overall with a 62-mph run that trailed only the 201-mph run achieved by a German team called WARR Hyperloop. But don’t count Paradigm out just yet. The team says it is now preparing for next year’s round, which is scheduled for the summer of 2018.

Totally tubular: Student teams
compete in Hyperloop race

Here’s our monthly roundup of some of the charitable works and donations by companies in the material handling and logistics space.

; In response to the hurricanes in the U.S. and Caribbean plus the devastating earthquakes in Mexico, the Prologis Foundation, the charitable arm of industrial real estate giant Prologis Inc., has made a $150,000 donation to the American Red Cross and is matching up to $50,000 in total employee donations. In addition, Prologis has donated 364,000 square feet of available warehouse space to help support recovery efforts.

; To support Hurricane Harvey relief efforts, Hyundai Construction Equipment Americas Inc. has made a $50,000 corporate donation to the United Way of Greater Houston and has called on its dealers throughout North America to join in the fundraising effort. Many Hyundai dealers are located in the Texas coastal area and have employees who were severely impacted by Hurricane Harvey. The company has also collected funds to provide some relief for these individuals.

; Denton, Texas-based Operation Airdrop (OAD), an all-volunteer group of general aviation pilots and planes formed in late August, has delivered relief supplies to the victims of hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. The organization was started by iHeartMedia personality John Clay Wolfe and pilot Doug Jackson to fly critically needed relief supplies to hurricane victims. Since its inception, OAD has grown to more than 200 pilots and planes from across the nation.

; In September, Omaha, Neb.-based transportation and logistics services company Werner Enterprises Inc. partnered with retailer The Home Depot to deliver Hurricane Irma relief aid and supplies from Lake Park, Ga., to Southern Florida. In total, Werner dispatched more than

100 trucks to support the relief efforts.

; Systems integrator and packaging technology specialist Beumer Group has donated $5,000 to the Greater Houston Community Foundation for Hurricane Harvey relief.

; Atlanta-based freight-pricing software firm SMC3 and its employees have donated $30,000 to the American Red Cross to assist in recovery efforts associated with hurricanes Harvey and Irma. In the first week alone, employees raised $6,000. The company then doubled each dollar contributed and secured additional matching contributions. It has also pledged to donate 10 percent of each paid registration fee from its Jump Start 2018 supply chain conference to the American Red Cross.